The US Border awaits. We chose to cross at Peace Arch, mainly because the sign on the highway posted the shortest waiting time there.
After queuing up in the Immigration building, paying $6 each for the privilege and undergoing some light interrogation, we waited for two officers to inspect the inside of our truck. Having crossed loads of land borders, this was the first time I had the vehicle searched without me being there to help them negotiate the incongruities of an English Traveller’s Home. I honestly doubt that they checked some of my more esoteric cupboards and, judging, by the lack of injuries, they didn’t even get to the overhead tool locker which drops its tools out when opened. Vaga, neither allowed in Immigration nor in the truck during the inspection, spent the time round the corner locked in a cage which I think she found a little bit suspicious too.
Soon enough we were on the Highway 5 to Seattle and we just drove straight in down to the waterfront and parked under some smelly old fish market called Pike Street along with homeless people and other characters. My first American city! I know not very much about Seattle: I remember the city got a little trashed a few years ago during one of those G8 shindigs, oh, and isn’t Kurt Cobain buried there?
Well, we only have this one evening to look around for a Nirvana Memorial but instead we found the very first Starbucks Coffee in the whole world. Kind of fitting, really, in a poetic sense. We had an early night because we had to be up early to avoid paying for our parking when, I imagine, this city roars into life.
